Holiday Weekend Book Deals, November 29 and 30

I hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving, if that's a holiday you celebrate. Now, please enjoy these affiliate links to some excellent book deals. Remember that books make wonderful gifts for the winter holidays.

These are all Amazon affiliate links, but I will have you know that I recently also became an affiliate of its rival company, Bookshop.org, which sells only books and not potato peelers, and also shares its proceeds with independent bookstores. If you'd like to support this blog through Bookshop.org, please visit https://bookshop.org/shop/aeess.

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A new book in the All Souls series by Deborah Harkness? Sign me up immediately. The book description talks about Diana and her twins but doesn't say anything about Matthew Clairmont, making me worry that something has happened to that vampire I want to marry, but still, I need to hold this book in my hands and learn its secrets. 

https://amzn.to/49mI5xV

The Song I'm Obsessed With Right Now

The song I'm obsessing over in August 2024 is "Joyride" by Kesha [Sebert].

I know the Kesha song "Supernatural," from her previous album Warrior, is about ghost sex. I know it isn't about the CW tv series of the same name. Still, this gave me an idea.

Borrowing an image from this Tumblr post, I overlaid some of the "Joyride" lyrics.

I reblogged the unedited Jensen Ackles pic from Bunny Jones. This is Bunny's art blog.

Then, borrowing an image from this Tumblr post, I made the complementary one for Castiel. 

I reblogged the second unedited image from diana2095. They're not active on Tumblr anymore, and haven't been for years, but their archive of Destiel fics is still there if anyone is interested.

Want to know what else I've been listening to? I made this "August Summerween" playlist. I'm not ready to fully lean into my extensive Halloween playlists yet -- I save that until September. But I did lean a little bit into the end of summer/autumn-ish vibes, with a hint of dark lyrics and lowercase-s supernatural references. 

Of note: The playlist includes a song-poem called "The Slitheree-Dee," performed by Shel Silverstein. You may remember it from Chapter 5 of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. While Silverstein wrote and arranged the version heard on Spotify, according to Alvin Schwartz's notes, it appears to have been based on an older folk song. 

Here is a drawing I drew in my 1999 sketchbook based on Stephen Gammell's 1981 illustration. 

Also on that now-deleted playlist: A song from the Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes film soundtrack. I haven't seen the movie, but I finished reading the book in July. I've heard there's another Hunger Games prequel to be released in 2025.

Songbirds and Snakes came out in 2020. I was quite slow to read it.

Lastly, you may also note the tracks "Murnau" and "Pentagrams" from the Smashing Pumpkins album that dropped on Friday, August 2. Those are the favorites on first listen. Those could change. It's a very new album. 

Erin's Dream Diary #10

I haven't done a Dream Diary since January, so let's do a quick one now.

I dreamed I was a young, lithe Hunger Games tribute. I went in search of Santa Claus. By an astonishing coincidence, he lived in the house directly across the back fence from my parents' house, where the parents of my childhood best friend Amy used to live. I wanted to tell him my Christmas wish, which was to rid myself of the residual trauma of the arena. 

My particular trauma took on a psychotic-break-with-reality quality. I believed I was being haunted by an evil spirit named Henry. Henry was my tormentor and my lover. I wasn't bothered by the sexual part of our relationship.

Santa's house, it turned out, was filled with runaway tributes. We even had a leader - Max from Divergent. I guess I got my YA trilogies mixed up. 

And the Christmas wish part was probably due to reading The Lullaby of Polish Girls by Dagmara Dominiczyk. It has several Christmas scenes. You may remember the author as the actress who played Mercedes opposite Jim Caviezel's Edmond Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo.

Listening to on my hour-long commute: Grey by E.L. James. I'm on disc 6 of 16.

Reading on my lunch hours: Jane and the Damned by Janet Mullany

Jane Austen, vampire

Previous Dream Diary Installments:

A Wonderful Vampire Dream
The Adam Levine Dream
The Beltane Fertility Dream

The Ben Affleck Storm Trooper Dream
The Boy
The Inspirational Zombie Dream
Wall Street
Window Into the Mind of an Erotica Author
Yugoslavia!

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'The Hunger Games' Adult Parody: Woodrocket.Com Presents 'The Humper Games' #NSFW

(Woodland Hills, CA - Press Release) December 2, 2014 – After a giant opening weekend for The Hunger Games franchise, there is only one way for fans to celebrate...with the XXX parody, The Humper Games.

From the website behind the viral hits “Bob's Boners” and “Game of Bones” comes the adult spoof that will have you saying,  “May the odds be ever in your beaver!”

Welcome to The Humper Games, the sexiest competition of any dystopian future! As an 18-year-old Tribute, Kantmiss Everyween, must take her place in the 69^thannual Humper Games. With the help of her friend, Puta, she must do everything in her power to survive a life-or-death contest filled with fighting, sex, talk show appearances, cat-calling, waiting for the next episode of Serial, getting her dystopian future iCloud account hacked, and hanging out with Lenny Kravitz.

Written and directed by Lee Roy Myers, and starring Veronica Vice, Aaron Wilcoxxx, Vuko, Kris Slater, and Seth's Beard, The Humper Games premieres exclusively on WoodRocket.com on December 2nd.

And stay tuned to WoodRocket.com for the sequels, Catching Firecrotch and Cockingspray Part 1 and Part 2.

Check out The Humper Games for free, only at WoodRocket.com

WoodRocket.com is your source for free adult entertainment with a comedy and pop culture twist. With thousands of high quality adult movies & scenes like "Doctor Whore," as well as original web series like “James Deen Loves Food,” “Topless Girls Reading Books,” and “Stoya Does Everything.” WoodRocket.com and its content has been featured on Gawker, Gizmodo, The Hollywood Reporter, Jezebel, Esquire, Bon Appetit, Vice, Fleshbot, and more. WoodRocket even found its "Game of Bones" and "The Knobbit" parodies as a trivia question on the highly acclaimed Comedy Central game show @Midnight.

Thoughts on ‘Mockingjay: Part 1’ – With Spoilers

Readers who are sensitive to discussions of sexual abuse should be aware that it will be mentioned in the discussion below. There will also be SPOILERS for Mockingjay Parts 1 & 2. You’ve been warned.

We saw Mockingjay on Friday night. We didn’t sit in the back row and eat popcorn mixed with Milk Duds like Ethan Wate and Lena Duchanne, although that sounded awfully good when I was listening to Beautiful Creatures earlier in the week. We sat in the middle and didn’t eat anything, because we’d just been to Red Lobster. I had the lobster tacos (which, of course, made me think of the Simpsons joke. “I’ll have your finest food stuffed with your second finest.” “Very good, sir: lobster stuffed with tacos.”).

We arrived at the perfect time, as the commercials ended and the previews began. One of the previews was for Insurgent. The clip showed an action heroine Tris in a dream, bravely trying to rescue her mother Natalie (the ever-beautiful Ashley Judd) from a burning house careening through the air. Tit turned to me and said he’d just realized the same actress played Tris and Hazel Grace. Disney’s new live-action Cinderella movie looked very traditional, very close to the cartoon, but also very good.

We also saw the Night at the Museum 3 trailer. The movie looks fantastic  - it moves the setting to London, and Rebel Wilson (another one of my favorite Aussies, with the Hemsworth brothers) appears as a security guard. She gets to be sexy and do a British accent. Robin Williams plays Teddy Roosevelt, and it’s bittersweet to see his face on the big screen now that he’s gone.

Rebel Wilson also appeared in the trailer for Pitch Perfect 2, which I think I’ll also enjoy. I love me some Rebel Wilson and Anna Kendrick. They’re so funny and smart and pretty and really they can do no wrong – and I say this even after I’ve seen Kendrick’s screwball end –of-days comedy, which is…different. Pitch Perfect 2 also has our Effie Trinket, Ms. Elizabeth Banks.

Then Katniss Everdeen woke up from a nightmare in the bowels of District 13, pining for Peeta. Forced into a hospital bed, she reawakens to the sounds of Finnick’s tears.

Aw, Finnick Odair – how my heart aches. Finnick pines for Annie in a way that Katniss can’t yet understand. Her love for Peeta is mostly theoretical; Finnick and Annie’s bond is physical. He misses her with every cell of his body. They both know Peeta, Annie, and (my darling) Johanna are being tortured in the Capitol; they just can’t imagine the extent.

Finnick is still alive at the end of this movie, but he’s already gone on the air to tell the people what President Snow did to him. Fictional or not, it still makes me angry. All Finnick wanted was to marry Annie and have a quiet life with her, but Snow forced him to be passed around between the elites like a toy. Let’s be perfectly clear about this: there is no such thing as consent when you’re being coerced by the threat of having a loved one killed. Snow caused Finnick to be raped. In my mind, Snow might as well have raped Finnick himself. Forced prostitution makes Snow and his accomplices the lowest of the low.

Creative Commons image by dalekhelen

I don’t judge Finnick at all. He only did what he had to do to save Annie’s life. He has nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t judge consenting adults over the age of 18 for choosing sex work as a career, either, but Finnick didn’t choose it.

As if we needed another reason to detest Snow – we see him flat-out murder an entire hospital full of innocent wounded people in this movie. He’s scum. I’m trying to remember what President Alma Coin does in Mockingjay 2 that makes Katniss decide she’s scum, too.

But I like to think that once Finnick and Annie are reunited, they can't stop touching each other. They're both such damaged people, each other's presence is the only thing that keeps them going. I'd like to imagine that night is the night their baby is conceived. 

Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson both do some exceptionally good acting in this film. She has to make Katniss believably traumatized, and I thought she did, especially in her reactions to seeing the bombed-out, burnt remains of District 12. He has to portray the effects of psychological torture (something similar to MK Ultra, in fact), which he pulls off chillingly.

Creative Commons image by slackerwood

Hutcherson looked physically traumatized in this, gaunt and with a swollen face. He almost looks like Christian Bale in The Machinist. I hope this effect was achieved digitally, similar to how pregnant Bella Swan looked emaciated and near-death in Breaking Dawn Pt. 1 without risking Kristen Stewart’s health. I’d hate to think of an actor as young as Hutcherson putting himself through such a harsh physical regimen.

If this movie has one fault, it's not enough Johanna Mason. 

Of course, it’s bittersweet to see Philip Seymour Hoffman in his last role as Plutarch Heavensbee. He played the character so well, too. 

Remind me not to see the second part, though. I don't want to see some of the sad things that are going to happen. Reading the book was traumatic enough. 

One of the side effects of reading is that it helps us understand other people's lives better. Right now, the entire United States is upset with the large number of innocent Black people who've been killed by poorly trained, racially prejudiced Caucasian police officers, who then escape legal consequences. Some of the victims are as young as 12. They're Primrose Everdeen in real life, only we're powerless to volunteer in their places. Unless the militarization of the police and the snowball effect it creates are somehow stopped, revolution will come off the big screen, out of the pages of the books, and into the real world. 

Every young person deserves an equal chance to grow up safe and healthy. The odds should ever be in all our favors. 

Kirsty Hill to Appear in Sony’s 'The Hungover Games,' Out March 11 #ParodyFilm

CULVER CITY, Calif., - Rising starlet Kirsty Hill, also known by the stage name Sophie Dee, is set to make an eye-popping appearance in Sony Pictures’ upcoming The Hungover Games, a parody mashup of Hollywood’s mega-blockbusters The Hangover and The Hunger Games, out March 11th on DVD/Blu-ray and VOD.

Hill co-stars with a talented ensemble that includes Tara Reid (American Pie (Unrated)), Jamie Kennedy (Malibu's Most Wanted), Jonathan Silverman (Weekend at Bernie's), Ben Begley (NCIS: Los Angeles), Ross Nathan (Bollywood’s English Vinglish), and Herbert Russell (Law and Order, Robot Chicken) with appearances by Bruce Jenner, Hank Baskett, Robert Wagner, Kayden Kross and Real Housewives of Beverly Hills stars Kyle Richards, Brandi Glanville, and Camille Grammer.

“I’ve been working towards this opportunity for years, and can’t believe how lucky I am to be able to act alongside people I have admired for years,” said Hill. “2014 is shaping up to my best year ever!”

The Welsh-born blue-eyed beauty will also appear in Danny Glover’s new comedy Bad Asses and Marlon Wayans’ upcoming spoof A Haunted House 2, both out later this year. Hill is currently in Los Angeles shooting the dark thriller Criminal.

The Hungover Games DVD/Blu-Ray includes over 20 minutes of bonus content, including "Go Deep Inside The Hungover Games," behind-the-scenes footage, plus exclusive interviews with the cast and a hilarious gag reel.

Synopsis: After celebrating Doug's upcoming wedding in a cheap hotel in Laughlin, Nevada, our hungover party-ers, Bradley, Ed and Zach, wake up in a strange room in an even stranger world... and without their pal Doug. After meeting the haughty and flighty Effing and the gruff, alcoholic Justmitch, the trio soon realizes they are on a train car headed to The Hungover Games. On the way, the men must face a harrowing assortment of Pop Culture Districts, including The Superhero District, The Middle Earth District, the Puppet District, and the Johnny Depp District.

Kirstin in the Johnny Depp District

The Hungover Games, written by David Bernstein, Kyle Barnett Anderson and Jamie Kennedy, marks the directorial debut of Josh Stolberg. Producers are Ash R. Shah, Ben Feingold, Jim Busfield, Steve Small, and Jamie Kennedy.  The film's run time is approximately 85 minutes. The DVD/Blu-ray is unrated. The unrated and R-rated versions will be available digitally and on VOD.



Social Media, Writing, and Editing Services I Offer - Erin O'Riordan

Enter to win Midsummer Night - Pagan Spirits Book 2 - from Goodreads through March 27

Book Review: 'Vampire Academy' by Richelle Mead

Occasionally, I see a movie that sends me running to read the book it was based on. The Thin Red Line's film adaptation inspired me to read James Jones' entire Wartime Trilogy, which occupied much of my reading time in 2012. When I saw The Prestige, not only did I develop my Titanic-sized crush on Christian Bale, but I was also so intrigued by the story, I read Christopher Priest's novel.

So it was with Vampire Academy. I saw the movie on Valentine's Day (review here) and couldn't get it out of my head. Earlier this week, after a session of ghostwriting at my local library, I sauntered over to the YA section and checked out the first Vampire Academy novel by Richelle Mead.

As I expected, I liked the book even better than the movie. It explained some things that weren't clear, or that I got wrong, when I watched the movie. I thought Rose's mother was a human, for one thing, but it turns out her mom's a famous guardian and a Dhampir. I didn't know the child of a Dhampir mother and a vampire (Moroi, specifically) father was also a Dhampir. This explains Rose's mother's aloofness.

I was slightly less horrified by the dead and wounded animals when I was reading about them than when I saw them on screen. Sometimes it's the visual that really gets you. I know some people were just the opposite on this, but when I read about Rue's death in The Hunger Games, it didn't affect me on such a gut level as when I saw the scene acted out by the beautiful young Amandla Stenberg.

On the other hand, some parts of this book that were delightful to see on film were even more delightful to read. Christian and Lissa's kiss, for example. Richelle Mead's writing shines most when she's writing about a strong passion, whether it's lust, anger, or Lissa's healing powers.

What I hoped would be explained better in the book than it was in the movie - Lissa's Spirit power, and elemental magic in general - wasn't really explored as much as I'd hoped. True, as the first book in the series, Vampire Academy had to pack in a lot of exposition, and perhaps Mead picks up the theme more in later novels.

I find the "fifth element" concept a little fascinating. As a word nerd, I think it's cool that the word "quintessential" literally means "of the fifth element." But what is the fifth element, exactly? What is Lissa's quintessence?

I think I'll read on in this series. I'm curious to know whether Rose ends up with Dimitri or whether she meets someone her own age.

In the meantime, since I don't have the second book in the series, Frostbite: A Vampire Academy Novel, in front of me, I've picked up The Vampire Diaries: The Return: Midnight by L.J. Smith. For me, it'll be the last book in the series, since I'm only reading the ones actually written by Smith.

I AM still reading Middlemarch, but very slowly, as it deserves to be read. It is not exciting book. Even though Jane Eyre told me I would like it if I liked Jane Eyre, I am almost 200 pages in and I am not finding this to be the case.

Enter to win Midsummer Night - Pagan Spirits Book 2 - from Goodreads through March 27

Our crime thriller Eminent Domain is a Kindle Bargain, only $3.99 for a limited time

Marry the Man With One Leg

In fiction, examples of great men missing all or part of one leg abound. From this, we learn that if you meet a man with one leg, you should marry him. Cases in point:

- Peeta Mellark. If you only know The Hunger Games through the movies, you might not know that as a result of his injuries, Peeta had to have a leg amputated near the end of the first book in the trilogy. Therefore, he competed in the Quarter Quell - and all the subsequent events - with a prosthesis. Although renowned for his baking skills, Peeta is no slouch when it comes to survival, both physical and mental. No wonder Katniss chooses him over Gale Hemsworth Hawthorn.

- Dan Evans. I haven't actually read Elmore Leonard's original short story, so I base this off Christian Bale's portrayal of Dan in the 2007 movie 3:10 to Yuma. Dan lost a leg in the Civil War. He then moved west, to the hot, dry climate of Arizona, with his wife and two sons because the younger son has tuberculosis. Before antibiotics (which came into common use right around the time of World War II), one of the few treatments they had for tuberculosis was a hot, dry climate. Dan's sole motivation in this film is earning enough money to keep from losing his property so that his child has a chance to live a little longer. Back then, everybody who got tuberculosis eventually died from it. A dad who'll put his own life in terrible danger to give his terminally ill child a few more years to live? That's a character whose character I can appreciate.

Sidebar: Most of what I know about tuberculosis, I learned from reading Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure by Jim Murphy.

- Augustus Waters. Gus - he's the teenage guy you'd actually want your teenage daughter to date. He's smart, well-read, romantic, funny, witty as can be, and in remission after the bout of bone cancer that cost him one of his legs. Gus is the actual perfect boyfriend. When he meets Hazel Grace Lancaster in their cancer support group, he knows their time together isn't likely to be very long, but he loves her perfectly in the time they have. Just don't read John Green's The Fault in Our Stars unless you're prepared to cry, then drop the book because you're crying, then call it a stupid book because it made you cry and drop it.

- Noah Langford. Noah is another war veteran, this time in Barbara Longley's contemporary romance novel series Perfect, Indiana. Noah is the hero of the first book, Far From Perfect. Noah slowly falls in love with Ceejay, but she is a very stubborn woman, and Noah is a very stubborn man, so their path is not entirely a smooth one. But they do manage to spend a night together, and when Ceejay discovers she's pregnant, it soon becomes evident that Noah's default setting is "amazing dad." Naturally, they live happily ever after. It is a romance novel, after all.

Far From Perfect made me cry, too, not because of Noah and Ceejay's rocky road to love, but because of the late-life romance between two of the secondary characters.

In real life, there's Alex Minsky. My dear goodness, is this one-legged man made out of gorgeous. Alex is a real-life war veteran and a U.S. Marine who lost the lower half of his right leg and wears a prosthesis - wears it so well, he's become a model.



Photographer Michael Stokes' nudes of Alex were famously banned for "obscenity" by Facebook, but sister, ain't nothing obscene about Alex's body.



So, when you find yourself a one-legged man, I suggest you marry him.

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#BookReview: Fifty Shades Freed by E.L. James

I've now completed E.L. James' Fifty Shades trilogy. (Don't read further if you don't want to be spoiled on the end of the trilogy.) You can read my review of Fifty Shades of Grey here, and my review of Fifty Shades Darker here.

Book Review

If you have read my previous reviews, you'll recall I got rather attached to Christian and Ana as a couple when I read the first book. When I got to its cliffhanger ending, with them broken up, I was eager to read the next one to make sure they got back together. As I read the second book, though, I became disenchanted with Christian's controlling behavior. I could no longer remember why I was so invested in them as a couple. I was also a bit bored by the pacing of the story. It does have some relatively interesting moments, but I felt they were too few and too far between.

Nonetheless, when I start a trilogy, I generally want to finish it, and I wanted to see what happened to Christian and Ana in the third book. I didn't love Fifty Shades Freed for the same issues I had with Darker: Christian can be controlling, and he can also be annoyingly childish when he's upset about something - and he's often upset about something he has absolutely no right to be upset about; the book also appears to be at least 100 pages longer than it needs to be, with unnecessary passages describing the French honeymoon and the ski trip to Aspen. There are some exciting bits, however, so with tighter pacing, it had the potential to be a good story. I didn't dislike the plot very much.

I do wish Ana had more of a backbone to stand up to her husband. She's still so in awe of him, and she's especially willing to give him a free pass on bad behavior because of his terrible childhood. He's not cruel, which according to Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches’ Guide to Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan differentiates between the alpha male hero and his "alphole" (alpha asshole) counterpart. But he is a control freak, manipulative, and one of those awful types of people who get silent when they're angry instead of discussing things in an adult fashion. In a real-world partner, these traits would be a deal-breaker, but we all know this is fiction.



So I just hope that in Ana and Christian's HEA, she has broken him of some of his more unpalatable personality traits and gained her own strength and confidence at the same time. She spends a lot of time worried about his anger or potential anger, and life's just too short for that nonsense.

They've never been a perfect couple, but they do sincerely love each other. This was one of my favorite passages:

"'You wanna dance? Let's dance,' he growls close to my ear, and as he rolls his hips around into mine, I can do nothing but follow, his hands holding mine against my backside.

"Oh, Christian can move, really move. He keeps me close, not letting me go, but his hands gradually relax on mine, freeing me. My hands creep around, up his arms, feeling his bunched muscles through his jacket, up to his shoulders. He presses me against him, and I follow his moves as he slowly, sensually dances with me in time to the pulsing beat of the club music.

"The moment he grabs my hand and spins me first one way, then the other, I know he's back with me. I grin. He grins.

"We dance together and it's liberating - fun. His anger forgotten, or suppressed, he whirls me around with consummate skill in our small space on the dance floor, never letting go. He makes me graceful, that's his skill. He makes me sexy, because that's what he is. He makes me feel loved, because in spite of his fifty shades, he has a wealth of love to give. Watching him now, enjoying himself...one could be forgiven for thinking he doesn't have a care in the world. I know his love is clouded with issues overprotectiveness and control, but it doesn't make me love him any less."

It isn't the most graceful writing in the world; it's a little awkward. At other places in the book, James writes dialogue and narration that sound so utterly British, I can't imagine any American who wasn't a transplant from the U.K. uttering them. (Then I start reading silently but imagining I'm reading in an English accent, and then I start laughing.) This trilogy will never win a literary award, but as I mentioned in the first review, my investment is in the characters' relationships, not in the literary style.

Ana simply wants to feel graceful, sexy, and loved. Can anyone really blame her? In real life, overprotectiveness and control are relationship red flags, and very young women especially have to be careful about not letting their fledgling feelings of love overwhelm their reason - and safety. This is Ana's fantasy, however - not reality - and I can't help but be a little happy for her when, at the end, she has her sexy billionaire husband, her dream house, and her son and daughter to make her happy.



The Weird Thing

Now let's talk about the weird thing. In the epilogue, when Ana is pregnant with her daughter, there's this little exchange between Ana and Christian:

"He grins as Blip Two somersaults inside me.

"'I think she likes sex already.'

"Christian frowns. 'Really?' he says dryly. He moves so his lips are against my bump. 'There'll be none of that until you're thirty, young lady.'"

I think even Christian is a little weirded out by Ana's statement that her unborn daughter "likes sex already." I'm glad that Ana seems to be comfortable with her sexuality and accepting of her pregnant body, but in what sense does she think her fetus "likes" sex? Am I wrong, or is that kind of a weird thing for a mom to say about her daughter? I don't have kids - never been pregnant - so maybe it's not as strange as I think it is. Is it?

The Movie

I'm usually excited about movie versions of book I've read and enjoyed, but I have no intention of seeing the movie when it comes out some time in 2014. It's not so much that I don't "approve of" the actors who were cast in the roles of Ana and Christian. I don't even recognize their names. It's more that I'm only going to be happy my imaginary versions of Ana and Christian, not with anybody else's.

I usually don't feel this way. I think Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson are a great Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. The more I look at Theo James, the more I think, "He'll be a great Tobias Eaton." I think I'll like the Divergent movie series. But I can't imagine getting into a Fifty Shades film trilogy.

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#BookReview 'Allegiant' by Veronica Roth (Spoilers)

Happy Halloween! You can find my Divergent review here and my Insurgent review here. If you haven't read Allegiant yet, do not proceed, or you will be spoiled.

Perhaps you would rather go to Publishers Weekly and read about how Allegiant sold 455,000 copies when it was released on October 22nd. It also mentions that the Divergent movie is set for release on March 21, 2014. That article contains no spoilers.

This review contains all the spoilers. I finished reading Allegiant on Tuesday, October 29th. It took me a week to read it, partly because I was finishing Fangirl and partly because I didn't want this series to end. Now I'm sad because it's over.

And because Tris is dead. Happy-ever-after for Tris and Four? Nope. Her noble self-sacrifice saved the city of Chicago, but doomed this YA couple to a sad and painful ending. So now you know why this is my Halloween post: it's about death.

Now that you've been warned of spoilers, I'm going to address some of the points I mentioned on Book Club Friday:

- As many tears as when I read the ending of the His Dark Materials trilogy, The Amber Spyglass, and the young lovers Will and Lyra can never be together? No, not as many. I only cried three times, and they were the squeal-y, The Fault in Our Stars tears that made my throat hurt.

What Tris did was very loving, but I'm so sad for Tobias (whose torment is described in agonizing detail).

- I'm still not crazy about Caleb, although Tris loved and forgave him, which made it a little bit better.

- Christina: this poor woman has lost so many good friends. First it was Will, who - let's face it - was probably the first person she ever fell in love with. Then, just as she's starting to get friendly with Uriah, he gets critically injured, never wakes up from his coma, and dies. Then she loses Tris.

Can we all just accept this headcanon right now: that at some point in the future, Tobias and Christina become more than just friends? I think I could be more okay with Tris' death if I knew Tobias would, eventually, love again. And only good things should happen to Christina from now on (she's suffered enough), and Tobias is pretty much a perfect boyfriend (a little angry at times, but under very understandable circumstances...) - so, can they please get together?

- I'm still not happy that Tori Wu is dead. I watched the first two seasons of Nikita, and Maggie Q is basically a flawless goddess and the living embodiment of Dauntless. When I see her playing Tori in the movie, I'm just going to get all choked up again because now we know that Tori will die and her brother will be sad.

Maggie Q - Creative Commons license

Don't get me wrong - I loved this book. I loved this entire series. It's so action-packed, and Tris and Four were just so sweet together (while it lasted), and I loved the character development. I'm not one of those people who are upset with Veronica Roth because the series didn't end exactly how they wanted it to, with Tris and Four getting married and having kids like Katniss and Peeta did. I think Veronica Roth did right by her own characters - not that my opinion is what counts. Sometimes Cath kills Baz, and sometimes she lets him and Simon live happily ever after.

But the sadness, though.

But I'm still really glad I read it. It was a hell of a journey.

P.S. Goodreads is counting Allegiant as the 60th book I've read this year, which completes my book challenge for 2013. It's kind of a cheat, a little bit, because some of those "books" are short stories, and I counted Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter as "read" even though I never finished it. (After the first third, I'd had enough. It just wasn't the book for me. No judgment on its quality, only on my reaction to it.)

2013 Reading Challenge

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What did you think of Allegiant?

In Which I Yarnbomb My Blog (Amigurumi)

I haven't had much time for reading or blogging this week. On Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, I had a ton of cleaning to do to the apartment underneath mine, getting it ready to show to a potential renter. I probably spent a total of 12 hours vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing, and sorting items to keep or donate to charity - and the guy was a no-show. I'm glad the apartment's clean, but now I'm a day behind on my writing and editing. (Still, I make time to blog.)

Late-summer chaos is contagious, apparently: I popped in to The Vintage Apple and found that the chaos has eaten the weekly Oh How Pinteresting! link-up, which will now be monthly link-up on the first Wednesday of the month, starting September 4. Which is cool with me - I still wanted to show you a thing today.

(You'll see some pre-written Halloween posts pop up on odd Wednesdays in October - just pretend like I knew Oh How Pinteresting! was going to a monthly format and I did them on purpose anyway.)

Here's the thing. Laura Keykens is a self-proclaimed nerdy girl, and she has a Pinterest board of nothing by amigurumi. Said board covers all kinds of subjects knitted in colorful yarn, and many of these subjects overlap with my nerdish obsessions interests. I like this almost as much as Isabelle Disraeli's fictional character ship-fest.

Take, for example, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.



And Harry Potter. (Note to self: you have two Pinterest boards of nothing but Harry Potter, but you've never done a Pinterest post exclusively about The Boy Who Lived. You should do that.)



And The Hunger Games.



And The Simpsons.



And Tard the Grumpy Cat.



And Loki.



And Lady Gaga.



And even Jane Eyre. Repinning this with the misspellings intact wasn't easy for me, but I persevered.



I personally have no knitting or crocheting skills whatsoever, but I admire the crafty people who do. I don't personally own any amigurumi, either. Somehow, I don't think my husband would appreciate me carrying around a Spiderman doll all the time like I did when I was 3, or going to bed with a stuffed Loki and calling it Tom.

Do you have a favorite amigurumi character?

A-Z Book Survey (Nicked From Somewhere Between the Pages)

I found this fun book survey at Somewhere Between the Pages, and it was created by The Perpetual Page-Turner.

Author you've read the most books from: Charlaine Harris, probably, since I read the entire Sookie Stackhouse series

Best sequel ever: Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness

Currently reading: Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Drink of choice while reading: at home, coffee; at a Starbuck's, tropical green tea

E-reader or physical book? Both

Fictional character you probably would have actually dated in high school: Augustus Waters

Glad you gave this book a chance: The Hunger Games

Hidden gem book: Master by Colette Gale

Important moment in your reading life: Finishing the first draft of The Smell of Gas, because once I knew I could finish writing a book, I knew I could write whatever I wanted to read that wasn't written yet

Just finished: Hotter Than Hell by Jackie Kessler

Kind of books you won't read: I generally don't read hard science fiction or high fantasy, and I'm not much of a mystery reader either - but I'll give any genre a chance if there's a particularly well-written example

Longest book you've read: probably From Here to Eternity. It's 860 pages (and worth every second of the time it takes to read)

Major book hangover because of: The Count of Monte Cristo

 Number of bookcases you own: One free-standing, two built-in

One book you have read multiple times: Wuthering Heights

Preferred place to read: Comfy spot on the couch

Quote that inspires you/gives you all the feels from a book you've read: "Tell all the Truth, but tell it Slant/Success in circuit lies..." ~ Emily Dickinson

Reading regret: I waited too long between each of the His Dark Materials books. If I'd known how great The Amber Spyglass is, I'd have read them one right after another

Series you started and need to finish (all books are out in series): the original Vampire Diaries series, the ones actually written by L.J. Smith. I have one more to go.

Three of your all-time favorite books: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, Little Women, Slaughterhouse-Five

Unapologetic fangirl for: Harry Potter

Very excited for this release more than all the others: Deborah Harkness's third All Souls Trilogy book

Worst bookish habit: reading in the bathroom

X marks the spot (the 27th book from the top left of your shelf): The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History by John Ortved

Your latest book purchase: Hm, my last few acquisitions were freebies, so I think my last actual purchase was of three Nalini Singhs at the discount book store

ZZZ-snatcher (the last book that kept you up way late): Lover at Last by J.R. Ward

Wear All the Fantasy Outfits!

Fashion meets literature in these pins. Or, to put it another way, fictionista meets fashionista. 

They're mostly from Polyvore, DisneyBound, and WaNeLo. I've never used any of those websites. Do you use them?  

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:

Harry Potter:

The Chronicles of Narnia:

Comic Book Heroes:

The Simpsons:

Which one's your favorite?

Would you actually wear any of these?

Amazon Vine Update + A Wonderful Vampire Dream

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A Wonderful Vampire Dream 

I had the most wonderful dream last night. I was a carefree college student, and I was on a trip to a small city I didn't know very well, looking for a hotel to stay in. As I drove down the city's main street looking for a decent hotel, I saw a small pool of water (a large puddle or a small pond) and two men standing - leaning against a wall and a tree - a short distance away. I was vaguely afraid of them. When I looked down in the pool of water, I saw the reflection of a woman in the second-floor window of a house across an alley from the pool. I inferred that this woman was the lover of one of the two men, and this made me vaguely jealous. 

I chose a motel. Once inside my room, I don't think I was able to lock the door, or at least lock it to my satisfaction. The two men were outside my room and I manually held the white wooden double door shut to keep them out. They wanted me to let them in. Eventually, I felt compelled to let them in. I realized at least one of them was a vampire. He looked looked like Robert Pattinson (but not as Edward Cullen - there was no sparkling). 

Photo by Eva Rinaldi, 2012. Creative Commons license.

That part sounds vaguely menacing and not very wonderful, but the next part was what I really enjoyed. The vampire sat on the bed with me, and I noticed how beautiful his hands were. I told him so. After that, I wasn't afraid of the two strangers anymore.

I went into an adjoining room, where some other college students I knew were playing a card game at a big table. I sat in on the card game, and the two men also joined us. With all the conversation going on, we all got to know each other better. That was when the vampire told me he thought I, Erin, would be much happier as an immortal. I became very excited that he was going to change me.

I don't remember all of the details of what happened next, except that the vampire, his friend, and I were joyriding in the back of a convertible that someone else was driving. Whatever else we did, it was something frivolous and essentially innocent fun, and I loved the worry-free feeling of it all, as well as being excited that I was going to become a vampire. When I woke up, I just wanted to go back into the dream reality. 

I may have been thinking about Twilight a little bit before bed, thanks to seeing this on Pinterest. 

See? It's like the Twilight cover, only with Finnick Odair sugarcubes. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire was a hot thing in social media yesterday because the second official trailer is out now. 

But we still have to wait until November 22 to see the movie. 

Amazon Vine Update

Last Thursday was Amazon Vine Day 1 for the month of July 2013, and both of the free items I chose were books. They came in the mail yesterday. 

One was the latest Dead Is novel (paranormal, young adult mystery) by Marlene Perez, called Dead Is Just a Dream. Like the classic Nightmare on Elm Street horror films, it's about teenagers who die in their sleep. 

Its official release date is September 3, but you can preorder now. 

The second book is Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink. This is a nonfiction book (Fink is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist as well as a physician) about Memorial Medical Center, a New Orleans hospital inside the flooded zone during Hurricane Katrina. 

Again, the book is not available until September (the 10th), but you can preorder now. 

I'm 109 pages in, and it's so sad. I just read a passage in which a doctor has told a nurse that the hospital is out of oxygen tanks and she had to let an elderly patient die, but that information was wrong - the hospital did, in fact, still have oxygen. That devastating experience the nurse had of having the old man die in her arms could have been avoided. 

This is the problem with nonfiction - reality is heartbreaking. Now do you see why I want to live in a dream?